Four Merkury Innovations Color Smart A21 Light Bulbs for the Living Room

A Nest Gen 3 Thermostat

Since the fixtures in the bedrooms are solid LEDs and not light bulbs, I've had to wire in smart light switches in order to gain control of the lights through Google Assistant. So, Phase 2 of my Smart Home deployment began with the installation of my first Geeni TAP Smart Wi-Fi Light Switch. It's a light switch that doesn't require an additional hub to work. You can control it from the Geeni app and/or Google Assistant. Since my lights and wi-fi plugs are all managed through Geeni, I figured that I would stay with that structure.

The good news is that I managed to install the light switch without passing any current through my body. The bad news is that, due to the nature of the neutral wiring in my house, the install was a pain in my rear. Most smart light switches currently on the market require the presence of a neutral wire in order to work. The one running though the bedrooms in my house doesn't offer much slack, so getting access to it so that I could twist it with the switch's wire was very difficult. The other issue is that the wire connectors included with the switch were too small to properly twist the paired wires together. I had to buy a pack of standard gauge connectors in order to twist the wires together properly. This meant that the switch box that houses the light switch had less room to hold the new Geeni switch. It took some creative placement in order to get it mounted flush with the wall.

I eventually prevailed and I'm pretty happy with the results. The Geeni TAP Smart Wi-Fi Light Switch performs as expected. At $29.99 it's a bit more expensive than I would like, but, one can't argue with results, right?